Keeping track of all the stories throughout the year can be overwhelming, and some impactful stories could easily slip through the cracks.
You might remember things like the government’s misappropriation of green tech funds, which halted Parliament for months, foreign interference in Canada’s elections or big stories like the Federal Court finding the use of the Emergencies Act in 2022 unconstitutional.
So here’s a list of some of those stories which you might have forgotten about throughout the year.
CityNews quietly walks back claims that 215 “unmarked graves” were discovered at Kamloops residential school
CityNews Vancouver quietly erased a false report it made that 215 graves were uncovered at the Kamloops Indian Residential School site in 2021. The outlet was hit with a community note on X for posts which wrongly claimed that “hundreds of unmarked graves” were discovered at the site.
City News edited the piece to include the word “suspected” about the supposed discovery.
The article initially said, “May 27 marks a grim anniversary. Three years ago Monday, hundreds of unmarked graves were discovered at a residential school site in Kamloops.”
It was amended to read instead, “May 27 marks a grim anniversary. Three years ago Monday, the Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation released the preliminary findings of its investigation, saying hundreds of suspected unmarked graves were discovered at a residential school site in Kamloops.”
Despite the reports, no graves have been confirmed at the site more than three years after the announcement. The announcement precipitated over a hundred suspected arsons and vandalism incidents targeting churches since the incident.
Nudist GTA swimming club offered free membership to children aged 14 to 18 without parental supervision
The GTA Skinny Dippers Club advertised its minor inclusive nude swim times at this year’s Trans March in Toronto. The group offered free memberships to children under the age of 18 while promoting that those aged 14 to 18 could swim naked with adults without being accompanied by a parent or guardian.
The group later changed its website to no longer show illustrations of naked children and photos of the nude backsides of children with their families and removed some of the controversial rules from the site following public outrage.
Chrystia Freeland met with an undeclared mystery lobbyist at the World Economic Forum
Back in January, the then deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, told the World Economic Forum summit in Davos that she had spoken to an ambiguous “very significant international business leader.”
She said that the decarbonization of Canada would mean more jobs, growth, and manufacturing, and she spoke to a “big investor in Canada” the day before the WEF summit.
“He said to me ‘All the countries in the world need to be very careful that decarbonization does not mean deindustrialization.’ I thought that was an extremely smart comment,” said Freeland.
Freeland did not register the meeting with the mystery WEF-affiliated investor.
The World Health Organization fails to draft a global pandemic treaty
The World Health Organization attempted to have its member nations, including Canada, sign a global pandemic treaty, which, among other things, would have given the WHO authority over each country’s responses to the next global health crisis.
The treaty, criticized as overreach by an international body that would strip Canada of its sovereignty, ultimately failed to pass.
However, it only failed because the WHO’s member nations disagreed on a draft. The WHO has signalled that it will try to reintroduce another draft of the pandemic treaty in the near future.
Canada’s contributions to the global discussion around the treaty largely centred on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion principles.
Feds quietly pay $36 million toward COVID shot compensation fund
Despite repeating the line that the COVID shots were “safe and effective,” throughout the pandemic, the Liberal government set aside tens of millions in compensation for COVID vaccine-related injuries.
The federal government added $36 million to its Vaccine Injury Support Program, though only 6% of the vaccine injury claimants had been paid as of April this year.
In January, the vaccine compensation fund paid out $11,236,314 in compensation to 138 families. True North spoke to Ross Wightman, one vaccine injury survivor who was paid $250,000 from the fund after developing Guillain-Barré syndrome from taking an AstraZeneca vaccine.
Wightman will likely never be able to work again and is a living example that the COVID vaccine was not “safe” for everyone.
